


The Strike of 1899

by MaeveBran



Category: Angel: the Series, Newsies (1992)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-18
Updated: 2008-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/pseuds/MaeveBran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A newly reensouled Angelus is in New York during the trolley workers strike and runs into a couple of Newsies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strike of 1899

Angelus was sitting in the alley watching the strike. He knew it was only a matter of time before the strike got out of hand and he wanted to be there when it did. He hated the idea of sucking blood from someone already dead, but he couldn't take doing the killing himself and he was getting tired of rat's blood. 

Soon Angelus's prediction was coming true. Someone started a fire and there was an explosion. The fire brigade came out to try to put the fire out and the striking workers stampeded. Men went down and Angelus knew he'd get his chance. But before he could join the squirming mass of men, Angelus noticed two teenagers and a boy coming out of the Vaudeville theater of Medda Larkson. The mass of men was coming their way. Angelus had to make a choice-- either to go into the riot and feed or to stand between the three boys and the rioting mob.

Angelus made his choice. He moved to stand between the crowd and the boys when he recognized one of them as the newsboy called "Cowboy". He knew that the Cowboy would get the others safely home. His conscience relieved for the time being, he dove into the seething mass of men and found a dead man to feed from.

Hours later, Angelus was sated with blood and looking for a place to hide from the other vampires in New York, when the Cowboy came singing and dancing down the street. Some of the ideas and frustration that the Cowboy was expressing fit Angelus's mood. He had never needed a family waiting up for him; he had made sure they never would over a century before when he had slaughtered them. But even before the massacre Angelus's family hadn't wanted him since he had been a wastrel. The weight of those deaths and those since had trapped Angelus where there was no future. Angelus looked at the Cowboy and vowed that he'd be safe and find away to escape the futureless city.

Days later, Angelus looked on in frustration as the Cowboy was led off in handcuffs. He knew that he had failed his self-imposed duty to see the Cowboy safe. Angelus plotted how he could break into the Refuge and break the Cowboy out. But before he could do anything, the other teenager he had seen with the Cowboy broke him out so Angelus didn't have to.

The next Angelus saw of the Cowboy was on an abandoned newspaper. The story said that the Cowboy had successfully led the newsboys in a strike against Pulitzer. The strike had been resolved and Pulitzer had caved in. Angelus was happy that at least someone could get out of a futureless life. Angelus knew he never would. He walked off into the darkness humming the Cowboy's song to himself.


End file.
